1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an infeed station of a stack palletizing system, with a stack feeder, a first and second chamber, which can each receive stacks from the stack feeder, first conveying means assigned to the first chamber and second conveying means assigned to the second chamber, with which stacks are conveyed in the chambers and can be transferred to a stack gripper, and first centering means for centering the stacks in the first chamber and second centering means for centering the stacks in the second chamber.
2. Description of the Related Art
A prior-art infeed station of this type is disclosed by EP 1 801 047 A. In the cited document, the station is referred to as a transfer unit and has a displacement unit, on which a carriage is mounted in such a way that it can be displaced horizontally and transversely to the direction of conveyance. Two placement means are provided. They are arranged side by side and support one stack each. In the present case, these placement means are conveyor belts. Two stacks located on the two placement means of the infeed station (or transfer unit, as it is referred to in the cited document) are seized with a stack gripper and set down on a pallet. To process stacks that are relatively wide, the infeed station must be constructed correspondingly wide, but this is a disadvantage with respect to the amount of space that it requires and with respect to the manufacturing costs. Adaptation to different formats is thus possible only with a comparatively wide infeed station.